“I am not the Angel of Death. I am merely—was merely—his servant.” The man had begun to slog ahead of him, and Malachi struggled to keep up. It was a difficult thing to walk through water. His muscles ached after only a few steps. “I am pleased to provide you protection. You have been kind to me. I know Humans enjoy hearing that their actions are approved of.”
“Yeah, we’re real suckers for heartfelt expressions of gratitude.” They had come to a fork in the tunnels. Keller flipped the light on his strange hat off and held a finger to his lips. “Okay, we’ve gotta go quiet through this part. I think we’ll have less trouble down that way.” He gestured to where the tunnel branched to the left. Water lay deep, and there seemed no end to it.
The other tunnel sloped upward quickly. Malachi could make out dry ground only a few feet from them. “Why not that way? You wear a contraption to keep you dry. I have nothing. I would prefer to take the drier path.”
“For one, this is not a contraption. These are waders. They just look strange because I won them off a Rock Troll who wasn’t all that good at cards. Two, that way looks easier, but trust me, it’s not.” Keller scratched the plate behind his ear with his metal fingers, the sparks fizzing out before they reached the water. “Easier in the Darkworld means more dangerous. There’ll be a tax, for one thing.”
“A tax?” Malachi had traversed these tunnels usually invisible to the denizens of the Darkworld. He had never been charged a tax. Then, the creatures he had been visible to may not have been brave enough to charge him.
“Yeah, a tax. For going the easy route. Hell, even some of the not-so-easy routes are taxed. If it’s a mortal, they usually want money or smokes. If it’s a Bio-mech, like me, they want scrap metal or spare body parts.” Keller held up his mechanical arm. “But God help you if you meet up with an Elf or a Succubus. What they want…” He punctuated his sentence with a shudder.
“Elf?” Malachi had not paid much attention to the species of the Darkworld he’d not had to collect. “I have never heard of Elf.”
“Elves. Outcast Fae. They were dark-sided long before they wound up down here. Nasty blue skin and yellow eyes.” Keller made a face. “They don’t like anyone. Barely get along with each other.”
“This world is…” Malachi struggled for the word in the Human language. The gift of tongues continued to slowly wear away. “Strange.”
“Strange to you? Imagine if you lived up there, where I’m from originally.” Keller gestured to the ceiling of the tunnel. “And it’s not like you haven’t been here for a while.”
“Too long.” When had time become an issue to him? They slogged on, the water growing deeper, almost to the top of the Bio-mech’s wading contraption. The tunnel around them changed shape, growing wider, and they followed it until Malachi saw a high ledge of dry ground beside their heads. “What is this place?”
“A subway?” Keller shrugged and leaned against the wall, reaching into his waders for the cigarettes he seemed to rely on more than food or drink. “I guess trains used to run under here before they cluttered up the Aboveground. That was before I was born. Are you doing a history on the Humans or what?”
“You are Human,” Malachi snapped back. “And I am merely trying to acclimate myself to this existence.”
“Correction, pal. I was Human. Now I can’t show my face up there.” The blue smoke from the Bio-mech’s cigarette spiraled through a dim shaft of light from an overhead vent, and Keller’s gaze followed it. “I could wear a hat. Gloves. Fuck them, they’d still get me.” He chuckled, a bitter sound. “Did you ever have to go up there?”
“No.” Only now it occurred to Malachi to question that. “I suppose we should have.”
“Uh, yeah. There are quite a few more mortals up there than down here.” He took another long draw off his cigarette. “Did any of you go up there?”
“No.” Another “why” he would not have worried about before.
“Don’t you think that’s kind of…” Keller gestured with his metal hand. “Unfair?”
Malachi shook his head, and the movement felt strangely natural. “I do not decide what is fair or unfair. I merely carried out the will of God.”
“And His will is to abandon those poor bastards up there?” The Bio-mech took another long draw off his cigarette. “Good thing I came down here, then.”
“That is not what I meant. You have twisted my words.” Malachi’s hands fisted at his sides, hands that would never have thought of committing senseless violence before. But this mortal and his confusing questions sent sparks of doubt through his brain. His immortality may have been ripped from him, but he would not allow this perversion of God’s work to take his last certainty from him.
“It’s a logical argument, though, right? I mean, if you guys aren’t up there doing what you do, who is? Does God have some other Angels making the rounds?”
“No. Only Death Angels collect souls.” So, why did no Death Angel go above, where the bulk of the mortals in existence lived? What happened to those souls?
Keller looked pleased with himself. Pleased at having infuriated him? “That’s what I’m talking about.”
Malachi slogged away, his confusion and rage giving fuel to his sore legs.
“Hey, you can’t do that,” Keller called after him.
Malachi did not look back. “Yes, I can.”
“No, you can’t. See, if you go that way—”
“I will become lost without you? I will fall prey to some creature lurking in the depths?” He struggled through the water, which inhibited his movements like a length of rope around his thighs.
“Kind of,” Keller called, but his voice held a troubling lack of concern. “But by all means, prove me wrong.”
Malachi took two more steps, though tentatively. Humans had a way of speaking words that were entirely different from the meaning they wished to convey. Another few steps, and his confidence returned. Nothing loomed in the shadows ahead, nothing brushed past his legs below the surface. It was not so treacherous as the Human warned.
And then the ground slipped from under his feet, and Malachi’s world reduced to water. His eyes shut under their own power, stranding him in darkness. The filth clogged his nose, rushed into his ears. He could not breathe, nor could he hear above the rhythm of his flailing limbs as they cut though the water. Forcing open his eyes he spied silver-green orbs rising to the surface that seemed impossibly far above him. The air from his lungs, stolen by the water and carried away.
I will die here. The panic clawed in his chest. His lungs cried out for breath, watery or not, to ease the burning ache in them. He opened his mouth, choking in surprise when something clutched at the uncomfortable collar of his shirt, then at his neck, catching hair and some feathers bent from the currents. His head broke the surface and he gagged, coughing a geyser of filthy water from his lungs.
“Easy, easy,” Keller repeated, grasping him under an arm with his metal one. The Human used his organic limb to pull them through the water, until Malachi got his footing and leaned against him for support. “I told you not to go that way.”
“Yes, you are very wise.” Why did he feel foolish? It was not as though the Human had given him explicit reasons why he should not have gone that way. If he had said, “Please, do not go that way or you will slip beneath the water and drown,” certainly that would have been a more effective warning. He opened his mouth to tell him so when the Bio-mech pointed to steps rising from the water at the level of their heads.
“We’re going up those,” Keller said, holding his arms out from his sides as he sloshed